Note from Rep. Gara: Foster Care Numbers Spike, Need for Laptops Rises; Good East High Stadium Progress
As you know, we’ve spearheaded a volunteer effort with Facing Foster Care in Alaska to get the word out that foster youth face yet another disadvantage in life. Many of them – probably most – don’t have a computer to do school work with. We want foster youth to succeed. That’s both our job as the legal guardian of Alaska’s foster youth, and the moral thing to do.
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NEWS: Laptops Needed for Foster Youth
ANCHORAGE - Representative Les Gara (D-Anchorage) today called on Alaskans to continue their support to help match Alaska’s growing number of foster youth with badly needed laptop computers. The number of foster youth in Alaska has been rising, from 1,880 in 2012 to 2,089 today.
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NEWS: OIL COMPANIES REFUSE TO PULL FALSE RADIO, TV ADS
Anchorage – Last week Representative Les Gara (D, Anchorage) wrote oil companies calling on them to pull radio and TV campaign ads they are funding, falsely implying oil production is going up under the 2013 oil tax law they are campaigning for. ConocoPhillips responded directly, refusing to stop the deception. The other three have not yet replied. “Oil companies should level with voters, not mislead them,” Gara said.
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NEWS: Gara to Oil Companies: Pull False Radio, TV Ads
Anchorage – Today, Representative Les Gara (D, Anchorage) called on four major oil companies to stop misleading Alaska voters. “When you spend over $8 million to dishonor voters by blitzing them with false information, it’s a reflection you have a weak case,” Gara said of the television and radio ads paid for by BP, ExxonMobil, Spanish company Repsol, and ConocoPhillips. Gara wrote each company today to call for them to withdraw their misleading claims.
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Note from Rep. Gara: Fool Me Once: A Fact Check on Those Slick Oil Ads
I’d like a world where people tell the truth during elections. But wishing doesn’t work in this new world where outside corporations and groups are allowed unlimited election $pending. With that money these special interests constantly violate the old adage that you’re entitled to your own opinions, but that you’re not entitled to your own facts.
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From Rep. Gara: Facts on Education and Three More Years of Education Cuts
ANCHORAGE - Today Rep. Les Gara (D-Anch), a lead sponsor of legislation to start reversing the last three years of over 600 layoffs to teachers and educators across the state, called the “three-year” education bill that passed “two, and likely three more years of layoffs on top of the more than 600 teachers staff Parnell and the GOP have cut since 2011.” Since 2011 Alaska schools have lost over 600 teachers and staff due to flat funding.
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